Sarah Tan

Name: Sarah Tan Wei Ling

Gender: Female

Age: 17

Grade: 12

School: Bayview Secondary School

Hobbies and Interests: Knitting, baking (cakes and cookies), reading (fantasy and classics), singing (Broadway), Christianity (still considering)

Appearance: Sarah is a homebody and it shows. She's petite, standing at only 4ft and 5 inches with a slightly pudgy and shapeless figure. Her shoulders may be broad for an Asian girl, but she rarely lifts anything heavier than 2 to 5 kg of wool in both hands, and that's only if she's knitting something extremely large. As a result, she doesn't have much by the way of arm muscles. Her stomach is likewise a little rounded - she can barely do more than 3 sit-ups in 1 minute. However, she does make up for all these by having some very fine calves on her little legs - some might even call them sexy, but only if they could see them (her skirts and pants tend to cover these).

A dowdy young lady, Sarah's hair is usually brushed but not styled and it doesn't look like she's been to a hairdresser anytime recently. Sarah seems to have lucked out in the face department with high cheekbones, a cute button nose, a nice smile with (previously orthodontics-assisted) straightened teeth and clean darkish-olive skin.

Due to the way she dresses, she has permanent tan lines on her feet that resemble shoes with thick straps and a watch tan where she wears her watch on her right hand. Sarah wears a pair of those new-fangled transition lenses in blue steel half-frames.

Biography: Sarah was born on 5th April 1992 to proud parents Dr Tan Sheng Yu (general practitioner) and Mrs Tan Jia Hui (housewife). The second of two daughters after a five year gap, Sarah lived a comfortable life. While she didn't exactly live in the lap of luxury, she very rarely wanted for anything. Her parents, while strict disciplinarians, still adored both their children and did a fair job of bringing the two up, trying their best to give their daughters good opportunities. They brought their daughters on overseas trips yearly and paid for as much tuition as they could afford so that their children could get ahead in life. All in all, the family enjoyed close ties, with occasional (and very minor) sibling rivalry between Sarah and her older sister sister, Mary.

Sarah spent a lot of her early life being confused. It wasn't that she was a malicious child, but she often seemed to misbehave without understanding why, often taking actions that made sense to her and no one else. She disrupted music classes by crawling around under tables while the teacher was talking, she sang loudly during Mathematics class when doing mental sums and she often destroyed Mary's toys. While her parents tried their best to correct her behaviour, no amount of discipline seemed to rectify the problem. Sarah just didn't seem to understand why she was behaving badly. As a result, she never had a very close relationship with her older sister and although the two respected each other, they were never "friends".

At the age of 6, Sarah was enrolled in Crescent Hill, a private Montessori all girls' school which Mary was already enrolled in. A combination of old-fashioned Asian parental pressure and hard work meant that she managed to skip a grade or two due to her excellent test scores. She was active in the school's clubs and was particularly interested in band and gymnastics. However, while she made friends very quickly, she seemed to lose them just as quickly. Her habits of walking off in the middle of conversations or simply barging in on others and interrupting conversations and games were not well received on the playground.

As Sarah worked her way through primary school and into secondary school, her parents began to notice a marked change in their daughter's behaviour. At 8, Sarah was always ecstatic at going to school and came home cheerful and optimistic. At 12, Sarah started to show signs of stress and tiredness, seemingly terrified at the prospect of another day at school. Sarah's strange behaviour had landed her a spot at the very bottom of the pecking order. She was never actively bullied at school, she was never included in games and didn't seem to have any friends. Years of playground shunning had taken their toll - the girl became more and more withdrawn. By the time she was 14, Sarah's grades had dropped to the point where the school threatened to hold her back. Something had to be done.

Sarah went to see a psychiatrist, was diagnosed with ADD and prescribed Ritalin. After much consideration, Mr and Mrs Tan took her out of Crescent Hill and enrolled her in Bayview Secondary, hoping to give her a fresh start somewhere new, take the pressure off their already burned out daughter and perhaps raise her self-esteem a little. So far, their plan has worked. While Sarah hasn't made very many new friends, she certainly is getting her self-esteem back and the Ritalin seems to be helping her grades quite a bit. Just prior to the games, Sarah was considering joining a few of the school clubs and showed particular interest in band.

Advantages: Sarah is kind and helpful. While no medical expert, she does have some first aid know-how and can diagnose and treat a number of conditions (setting broken limbs, for example). Sarah is good at sprinting short distances. If in a pinch, Sarah can go somewhat berserk, unleashing years of frustration on her attacker with little to no consideration for her own safety.

Disadvantages: Sarah is withdrawn and shy. Her ADD does make it a little difficult to concentrate on things and can still make her a little distant from her classmates. She has little to no combat abilities. If in a pinch, Sarah can go somewhat berserk, unleashing years of frustration on her attacker with little to no consideration for her own safety.

Designated Number: Female student no. 106

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Designated Weapon: Cutlass

Conclusion: Argh! Yo, ho, fiddly dee, being a pirate is alright with me! Avast matey! You'd better be careful, because how I see it, you're nothing but a scurvy landlubber. It won't be long before someone competent comes along and makes you walk the metaphorical plank. You can help other people, but I just can't see how that will help you. As soon as you patch someone up, they're liable to blow you away. Still, maybe this'll be just the thing to free you from your monotonous life. Follow your whims, the bloodier the better, and remember: you do what you like 'cause a pirate is free. You are a pirate!

'The above biography is as written by selphie_trabia. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Kills: None

Killed By: N/A, Escaped

Collected Weapons: Cutlass (assigned weapon)

Allies: Sapphire McLeod, Stacy Hart, Brendan Wallace, Raymond Dawson, Robert Barron, Neill Robertson, Harun Kemal, Rashid Hassan, Remy Kim

Enemies: None

Mid-game Evaluation: Sarah Tan was the first of the girls in the lighthouse to wake up. Briefly quelling her fear of the games, her first actions were to change her contact lenses and to pray. She was interrupted by Sapphire McLeod, who came down from the floor above. Sarah then proceeded to threaten Sapphire with her cutlass, but was partially talked down by the other girl until Stacy Hart arrived on the scene. The two other girls managed to calm Sarah down from her paranoid state and the three girls sat down to have breakfast together. As Sarah owned no short skirts or pants, she stripped her skirt off to allow for greater freedom of movement and changed from court flats to sport shoes. As the other two girls with her played cards, Sarah sewed the hem of her skirt together using beading wire borrowed from Sapphire in an attempt to create a makeshift scabbard for her cutlass. Once the scabbard was made, Sarah said her goodbyes to her companions and set out from the lighthouse to gather supplies for survival.

Sarah made her way to the warehouses, where she spotted Teo Weinstock and Nick LeMonde, but did not make any attempts to engage them in conversation. She also passed by the Docks, where she spotted Darren Locke. Sarah then proceeded to the infirmary, and promptly raided most of the supplies before attracting the attention of the current inhabitants, Brendan Wallace, Raymond Dawson, Robert Barron Neill Robertson, as well as Charlotte Cave and Jaclyn Krusche. Sarah volunteered to assist Jaclyn in administering first aid to Charlotte, who had previously lost an eye, but soon found herself in the middle of an all-out brawl between the two. After unsuccessfully attempting to stop the two girls from the fight which resulted in both their deaths, Sarah panicked and escaped the infirmary to return to the lighthouse, unaware that it had just been declared a danger zone. She was followed by Brendan.

Halfway up the cliffs to the lighthouse, Sarah was warned away by Brendan and Stacy. In order to avoid collar detonation, Sarah quickly scarpered back down the hill, nearly hitting Brendan in the process and reuniting with Stacy. Her actions inavertendly caused Brendan to badly injure his leg and attracted the attention of Carly Dooley, Marion Summers, George Leidman, and Jasper-Declan MacDermott. Sarah ignored Marion and George's offers of help and performed basic first aid on Brendan's leg. Sarah then joined Brendan and Stacy for the remainder of the games.

The newly-formed group proceeded to the forest where it was discovered that the condition of Brendan's leg had worsened. Sarah stitched up the leg with supplies stolen from the infirmary but was interrupted by the appearance of Erik Laurin, Brendan's boyfriend. Short of sleep, upset over the deaths of Jaclyn and Charlotte and also at herself for letting Brendan's leg wound fester, Sarah let off a burst of emotion and fainted.

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

Other/Trivia

 * Sarah Tan can be considered her handler's self-insert character, but does not have half the skills of her handler.
 * The name "Crescent Hill" is a pastiche of two schools which Selphie attended
 * Sarah was adopted by Inky after her original handler was forced to quit the site due to real-life circumstances.

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Sarah, in chronological order.

The Past:
 * Erm... uh... well... errr... ah... well...
 * Free Piano Concerts

Pre-Game:
 * A Quiet Time
 * White noise and Titration
 * Cook Until Done
 * Let the Dance Begin!

V4:
 * Jack Sparrow Irony
 * Twists and Turns
 * Walkabout
 * Filling Prescriptions
 * Pearl and Destiny
 * Gypsy Rap
 * Keep On Smiling
 * Eep.
 * You Are On a Rock Floating Through Space
 * The Cavalry Arrives

Post-Game:
 * Have It Your Way
 * The Tipping Point

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Sarah Tan. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''
 * The really cool thing about Sarah, I think, is that she was a pretty normal girl who, when tossed onto the island, pretty much entirely failed to cope. Sarah's time in the game was a series of breakdowns and lulls. Her conflict, more than that of many other kids in the game, was internal. Also unlike many others, she didn't exactly win it.

There are some awkward bits in Sarah's story, mostly at the points when her posts slowed down or when she was being babysat. I think V4 as a whole proved that babysitting is largely a last-resort option, because with characters who have a lot of stuff going on under the surface, it risks obfuscating or derailing that, or, arguably worse, revealing things too bluntly or early.

Fortunately, by the time of the rescue, Sarah was back on track. I think the most interesting thing about her may be that she's one of the survivors who is least able to recover, despite not having been exposed to as much horrible stuff as many of the others. She's probably one of the most damaged survivors besides Cisco, and it was nice to see the game actually have a crippling effect on somebody. I always felt bad for Sarah, and I was quite glad to see her make it out alive. - MurderWeasel